Does anyone have any chocolate?

I am a married woman in her 30s... how awful does that sound - ok, how about... I am a sarcastic 32 year old married woman with a bun in the oven. I have a fantastic dog who has an evil pet cat. My husband and I bought a house 2 years ago and have been doing major renovations since then.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Christmas

I've just booked my Christmas flight. Oh what have I done? J convinced me to go up to see my folks a week early to give them more time with their grandchild. I acquiesced. I think they all caught me on a good day and I'll live to regret this later. Now I'm going up there on the 10th of December - THE 10th!!! Until the 26th. That's 16 whole days with my parents. I just tired of them after the 3 weeks they were here and now I go and book another 16 days with them. I must be insane. J is coming up for just a week before christmas and then we'll fly back together on the 26th. His parents will be here when we get back so it'll be a LOT of family crap until January 7th or so when his folks leave. oh boy, it never ends. I guess we'll skip putting up the christmas tree this year as I'll be gone from the 10th to the 26th and J would never bother to put it up while I'm away. Less crap to put away after Christmas then.

I anticipate there being a bucketload of toys and crap for Trevor and we have no room for it all anyway. I wondered about telling J's family that Trevor doesn't need any presents this Christmas as he doesn't know one day from the next anyway. I've already told my parents that we don't want "stuff" this year - so movie tickets or things that we can use are ok, but no giant loads of crap to cart around or store. J's parents (or more, his sister) will never abide to this rule, but I think I might float it out there. My biggest fear is all that plastic crap that is out there for kids.. WE DON'T WANT IT. People seem to think that we can't afford it and that's why we don't have it, NOPE, we can afford it, but we DON'T WANT IT. Just to be clear.

Worn down

Ok, so due to lack of sleep my body is breaking down. I thought it couldn't get worse, but yes, oh yes, it does. I have had the yeast infection - which, for the record, may be back. And I STILL have the hemorrhoid. I've now been to the pharmacist to tell my sordid tale and get drugs - I was prepared to get Preparation H but nooo, apparently all the rage is Anusol Plus. GOd the embarrassment - ANUSOL. Not only that, but I asked the pharmacist if it's ok to use since I'm breastfeeding and she said yes, since it's topical. I then said - uh, topical...I'm pretty sure the hemorrhoid is inside... She then got out the "applicator" to show me how to shove it up my ass and squeeze.... CHARMING. Oh god how i've fallen... now I'm squeezing tubes of stuff up my ass!!! So ok, to recap - I have yeast, I have hemorrhoids, and zits... oh the zits. My complection is now rivaling a 15 year old's. You think THAT's bad... well this past week I have also been battling a cold sore. AND I can't take any of the cold sore stuff, so I did a quickie internet search when I felt the tingle and I read that nail polish remover does the trick... and so it does! I have felt that tingle a few times and each time I dab on a bit of nail polish remover and so far, no cold sore... here's hoping it stays like that.

Monday, October 17, 2005

The woo-hoo afterward

No one mentions anything about preparing for the pain of the woo-hoo AFTER the birth. I never thought about that at all.

Well, now I do...

I had a few stitches for some "minor" tearing. It felt pretty bad for "minor" tearing.For the first week I used the spray bottle every time I had to pee - and Oh was I afraid to poo... Then I got a yeast infection -then I also got a hemorhoid (LOVELY)... So there was itch and pain and still the fear of pooing. Worse and worse.

It's been a month now and FINALLY I've managed to get rid of the yeast infection, but the hemmy is still there. And I am still deathly afraid to poo. Oh god does it hurt. Feels like you are splitting open your bum hole every time. I am using Tucks - some sort of wipes, but it doesn't seem to be making it go away. Any advice would be welcomed.

Visitors

I'll gloss over this as it's old news now but my mum arrived 2 days after Trevor was out and stayed 3 1/2 weeks. My dad and J's parents (who are in their 80s) arrived on the 28th. It was stressful to have all the family here and I don't recommend having anyone stay that long ever. J's parents didn't leave until Oct 11th and they are just a lot older now than they used to be so it was a lot to have them here. We were having to look after them as opposed to them looking after me. My mum was a big help but there was sometimes it was a lot to deal with.

There is so much more I could say about the visitors but I'll just move past all that turmoil... My parents call every day still - I guess they are still pretty excited about little T.

The birth

Soooo sorry I've been truant... I've been busy. Turns out that nesting thing really means something as I had our baby on September the 14th... Here's the birth story.

So I was due on Sept. 15th and had already been off work for a couple of weeks. I had finished all the stuff I wanted to do and had made muffins and cookies and was just eating up a storm. I was pretty much ready to just have him out by then.

On the 13th at 7:30 am I had some bloody show which was pretty charming really… now I know what that means… I called the doula, Jennifer, and she told me to keep her posted. Nothing much was happening so I went out for lunch as I had planned. I was having some mostly painless contractions but they were very sporadic. They did freak out the people I lunched with though. I came home and napped most of the afternoon just in case I went into labour soon. It was good to have these little warning signs so J had some warning – he went in to work that night to wrap some stuff up in case the whole thing went down soon. I talked to Jennifer at 9pm and told her nothing was happening and that I’d call her sometime tomorrow and let her know what was going on. We went to bed early and then by 10:30 pm I started having contractions. J was sleeping so I didn’t wake him up and freak him out. They were every 8 minutes from the beginning and moved to 2 minutes apart if I lay on my right side so I stayed on my left. They weren’t very strong but they weren’t Braxton Hicks. I did try to sleep for 5 minutes between them but it was a long night. At 1am or so J woke up and had a bit of a freak out scrambling to get his watch to start timing the contractions. I told him they weren’t yet really bad so it wouldn’t happen soon. I told J to sleep some more as I’d need him later and I had napped the afternoon before in preparation for this. It was a long night and I was just waiting for 5:30 am as that was the time I had in my head to wait until calling Jennifer. J was awake with me for most of the night anyway and the contractions got stronger and I lay in bed trying to deal with them. I was very happy to see 5:30 am and we called Jennifer and asked her to come over. We showered and got our stuff ready for the hospital.

Jennifer arrived and was a huge help for the more intense contractions I was having by then. I was feeling pretty nauseas with each contraction. Jennifer had some sort of aromatherapy oil that was lavender and mint and it instantly took the nausea away. The funny part was that when the contractions were getting stronger I actually considered holding ice cubes – just to focus on something else! We laughed about that – not really a viable option, but a fun idea at the time. Eventually I threw up and had a lot more show and the contractions were a lot stronger.. Jennifer said I was in transition now and we headed over to the hospital. We were in the assessment area at about 9am and they checked me and I was 3 cm dialated. They wanted me to go and walk around for an hour and come back. We walked around the grounds of the hospital while I had a contraction every few minutes or so. I could tell that the baby’s head was moving down and by the time the hour was up I was 8 cm dialated. We were waiting for a room and I couldn’t help it and started to push. Eventually they had a room for us – in the cedar wing!!! They wheeled me up and I hopped straight into bed and got ready to push. I had hoped for the shower and all that, but it was wayyy too late for that. After about 50 minutes of pushing – which, for the record, wasn’t that bad, Trevor was born. He was a 10 on the apgar scale and was 8 lbs 1 oz. My doctor was great and everyone in the room was so calm the whole time that it made it not as scary as I thought it might be. Trevor was placed on my chest right away and J was even tearing up – which is unlike him. It was a magnificent moment for us. Right after Trevor was out I apparently said “That was fantastic, I feel great!” Granted, I was high on all the endorphins… I had some minor tearing so I was stitched while J and I looked at our new baby. Trevor was born at 2:43pm so we had lots of time to call people, shower and settle in before visiting hours. We had a few people come to see us in the hospital and then we tried to sleep. I have to admit that as tired as I was, I stared at Trevor for much of the night, in awe that he was inside me just a few hours before. We left the hospital the next day as soon as we could and went home to settle in.

About Me

I'm a bit of a freakshow, I'll admit, but I'm quite adept at acting normal in front of those that i need to. My friends know that i'm a bit odd and i don't have to hide it. I live in Vancouver, BC, and am really enjoying my life lately.